Digimon Survive takes the Franchise into a New Direction

If you grew up in the 90’s or early 2000, you probably argued with your friends whether Pokemon or Digimon was better. Both are Japanese video game franchises focused on working with animals to fight other players. They were released around similar times in the United State. They also both ended with -mon so it was easy for people to argue which was better. Internationally, Pokemon has beaten Digimon in popularity and the number of games released. Digimon games’ genres have greatly changed over the year and don’t have a definitive genre, unlike Pokemon. Bandai Namco’s newest Digimon game, Digimon Survive, will be a Survival Strategy RPG. Perhaps the change will bring in more fans.

Digimon has always had the advantage of a darker story than Pokemon. It looks like Digimon Survive is taking the darkness and ramping it to 100%. The gameplay is split into two parts.

One will focus on traditional SRPG by moving your Digimon Units around the map and attacking other Digimon. Each unit has Energy Points and managing it is important. Energy Points can help you evolve or use different attacks. The battlefield is a mix of 3D areas with semi-2D Digimon sprites.

The second part is the interaction with other characters. You play as Takuma Momotsuka, an 8th-grade student who gets lost in another world. With his partner Agumon, they work together to help him find a way back home. There are other human characters and depending on how you talk to them, it will change the story, cause evolution, or death for some characters.

There are multiple endings, paths, and evolutions based on how the story changes.

The art looks beautiful and the concept is definitely an interesting take on the series. There aren’t too many trailers on the gameplay so it will be interesting to see how the game develops. The idea of the game isn’t enough for me to instabuy but depending on reviews, I may change my mind.

Digmon Survives releases sometime in 2019 for all regions and for the Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.